


10,000 Miles

by Chastened



Category: Political RPF - US 21st c.
Genre: M/M, deployment fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:27:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23768470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chastened/pseuds/Chastened
Summary: "He opens the front door. It’s heavy. It’s October. The days are shorter, darker: contracting. He goes outside and sits on the porch steps, waiting for him to come home."An AU about Peter’s second deployment.
Relationships: Chasten Buttigieg/Pete Buttigieg
Comments: 17
Kudos: 30





	10,000 Miles

**Author's Note:**

> This is deployment fic and, like every deployment fic in this relationship tag, it gets pretty emotional. I normally wouldn't preface a fic with a content warning, but we're living in a crazy time right now... So if reading emotional fic is something that's not helpful to you during, idk, ~PANDEMICS AND DEPRESSIONS~, you might want to put this one on the back burner until the world stops being on fire. However, if you're like me and you like reading/writing emotional stuff while you're emotional, then...feel free to board this airplane of angst; as always, I'm pleased to be your pilot, and I promise to deliver you safely to your destination.
> 
> ***
> 
> When I offered to write a Pete/Chasten fic for Pocket’s birthday, I asked her what she wanted me to write. She said "deployment fic" SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE she knows that deployment fic breaks me and I hate it, lol. (This is true friendship!)
> 
> The title of this piece comes from the English folk ballad “Fare Thee Well”, which I've been thinking a lot about lately in the face of current events. It’s a dialogue between two people who have to be apart, whose love transcends a great physical distance: “And fare thee well my own true love / And farewell for a while / I’m going away, but I’ll be back / If I go ten thousand miles.” Seemed appropriate for deployment fic, too.
> 
> (Plus, I can’t help but think of Pocket when I hear this lyric: “For if I had a friend all on this earth, / You’ve been a friend to me.”)
> 
> So thank you for being a friend to me on this earth, Pocket, and for reading my twisted shit, and for sharing your twisted shit with me. I'll never feel like I can write something worthy of you, but that's less a reflection on my abilities and more a reflection of what an amazing person you are and how much I value knowing you. Happy birthday.
> 
> In conclusion, fuck deployment fic.
> 
> Always, c.

The day before he leaves, Chasten boxes up everything that reminds him of Peter.

He boxes up the tiny ivory busts scattered across the piano lid.

He boxes up the books he doesn’t remember buying, that he knows only Peter would read.

He even, after a long hesitation, boxes up the pictures of them at the White House holiday party. But before he does, he draws a finger across the tops of the frames, felty dust accumulating on his fingerprint. Lately he’s been too distracted, too sad, too _absent_ to clean, and it shows.

Every three minutes he checks his phone. He said he’d be here at six, after work, but that might be a pipe dream. Chasten is aware of the many loose ends left to tie up at the office. Just because Peter has been deployed once before doesn’t mean they’ve developed a protocol to deal with his absence.

Ever since they found out, the idea of this last night has haunted Chasten’s every moment: every waking hour, every sleeping hour, and every blurry twilight in between.

He has imagined over and over and _over_ again how a good boyfriend would say goodbye. Make dinner from scratch. Sit down at the table. Watch Peter over tealights and a seasonal centerpiece, making jokes that crinkle the skin at the corners of his blue eyes. Breathe in the fragrant steam rising up from fresh-cooked asparagus. Be present in the moment.

But that moment is here; it’s now; and now that it’s here, Chasten doesn’t feel like eating. Over the past few days he has emptied the refrigerator and stayed away from the grocery store. He can’t bear the thought of pitying stares and sympathy, the feeling of being a tragic figure on display. He knows he has been weak and selfish, and, as a result, they’ll be eating takeout.

At five-thirty he tapes the last box shut. Afterward he wanders through the first floor, footsteps echoing. The house has become a clean silent slate, like a realtor’s listing. Depersonalized. Bare

Finally he opens the front door. It’s heavy. It’s October. The days are shorter, darker: contracting. He goes outside and sits on the porch steps, waiting for him to come back home.

* * *

When Peter steps out of the car, Chasten sees right away that he’s trying to look natural, as if this day is like any other day. He’s wearing a well-tailored navy suit, and something at the bottom of Chasten’s stomach flip flops at the sight of it. He strides up the sidewalk, head shyly ducking. Chasten appraises the length of his thick dark hair - the slight endearing hunch of his posture - the intelligence, the soulfulness of his eyes, and the incontrovertible fact of their blueness. He drinks it all in. He knows that every moment now is a new last memory.

Chasten stays on the steps to embrace him. When he says his name - “ _Peter_ ,” he says - Peter makes a move to kiss him, but at the last minute Chasten turns his head away.

“I think tonight should be...just ours,” he murmurs. He looks across the side yard to the neighbors’ house, at the dying vines curling up their trellis, and he feels a cold autumnal tinge on the breeze.

Peter takes his hand and squeezes it. “Whatever you want,” he says, and the sound and feel of such a deep-voiced whisper make goosebumps drip down the backs of Chasten’s arms.

“I want _you_ ,” Chasten says, and he drops his hand and turns around and opens the door so they can retreat to be together.

As soon as the door closes, Peter has gently pushed him up against it. “Hi,” he says, smiling, and a kiss lands with slow exquisite tenderness on his cheek.

Chasten closes his eyes for a moment. “Hey,” he whispers back. He almost asks Peter how work went, but for some reason he resists. Then he realizes it’s because this might be the last time he ever says hello to him. “I love you,” he says instead. “I love you forever.”

“I love you, too,” Peter says. “No matter what, I’ll always love you.”

They’ve already sunk into repetitive sentimental banalities, but it doesn’t matter, because they’re true. Peter wistfully combs a hand through Chasten’s hair; Chasten shifts his weight to his toes so he can push up and against the affection.

“You know that, don’t you? How much I’ll always love you?”

Chasten’s eyes are still closed. “No,” he finally admits.

Peter doesn’t seem surprised. His voice lowers. “How can I help you know it?”

“Oh, Peter,” he breathes, and they both lean forward until their foreheads touch, and Chasten reaches up a hand to stroke his fingers against the warm soft back of Peter’s neck.

But Peter stops him. “What’s wrong?” he asks. Chasten’s eyes flutter open, incredulous; Peter starts speaking in a rush. “Dumb question; I know _everything’s_ wrong, but… You’re shaking.” He takes Chasten’s hand in his with an unbearable gentleness and shows it to him. Chasten sees that he is, in fact, shaking. He wonders how he hasn’t noticed until now.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“It’s not something to be sorry for.” Peter furrows his brow, retreating into analyzing the problem. “When did you eat last?”

“Can’t,” Chasten manages. Now that he’s noticed the shaking in his hand, he feels it all over. “Stomach’s in a knot. I’ve been packing up your things, I don’t want to see them when you’re gone, and I’m so tired; I’m just _so tired_ , and I’m…” He swallows. He finally lets it out. “I’m so scared.” But as soon as he says the words, he tries to change course, play them down. He speaks faster. “I shouldn’t be complaining; you’re the one who’s leaving; it’s just _beyond_ selfish of me to even - ” He wants to say more, but nothing more comes out.

Peter sounds genuinely worried now. “Sweetheart. You need to eat.”

“There’s nothing left to eat.”

“What?”

“The fridge is empty. And I haven’t gone to the store.” He defends himself preemptively. “I didn’t want to spend nine months opening the freezer and seeing some tub of ice cream we shared.” Then, weaker: “I’ll get groceries once you’re gone. And they’ll be just mine, and not yours. Don’t tell me it’s ridiculous. I know it is.”

Peter’s expression is indecipherable. “I won’t say it’s ridiculous,” he finally says, but Chasten feels that he must be thinking it, because he can’t say the words without glancing down at the floor. “It’s fine. We’ll just order in tonight.” He hesitates and looks back up, mischief in his eyes. “And have a drink, maybe.”

Chasten laughs a little despite himself. Then a thought strikes him. “Are you even allowed to drink the night before - ?” He trails off.

The thought clearly hadn’t occurred. “I guess I don’t know. But…” He smiles. He’s so radiant when he smiles. “You’re worth breaking the rules for.”

He glances down at Chasten’s lips and back up to his eyes, asking the silent question, and Chasten nods quickly, and he kisses him, tentatively at first, then more insistently, and Chasten collapses into it. But he feels an immediate disconnect that terrifies him. Neither of them are fully in the moment. It’s as if, for better or for worse, they’re back at that first kiss underneath the fireworks, learning each other from scratch.

So Chasten breaks away. Instead he takes a hand and brushes it against Peter’s soft cheek. He feels Peter’s smile blossom beneath his fingers.

Peter teases him. “You didn’t box up the drinks, did you?”

“No,” Chasten says. He drops his hand from Peter’s face. “I put the liquor on the sideboard when I was going through the kitchen. I figured we’d need it.”

“You were right.”

“I was.”

They hesitate a moment, studying each other’s faces, until finally Chasten slips his hand in his and steps away and pulls him around some boxes. His stomach churns as he remembers the contents packed beneath each tightly taped flap. The sheet music. The baseball from the first date; the unwound pocket watch. The file folder bulging with paperwork having to do with taxes and - ominously - life insurance policies. By the time they reach the sideboard in the dining room, the sight of the dusty liquor bottles comes as an acute relief.

“So,” Peter says. “What do we all have here?”

“Whiskey,” Chasten says simply. “I put your favorites over there.” He nods at the corner of the sideboard.

Peter looks at the labels. A shadow of trepidation passes over his face.

“Something wrong?” Chasten asks.

Peter struggles to be diplomatic. “No,” he says. “Just… These look a little stronger than what I was thinking of for tonight. That’s all.”

Chasten knows he’s right, but he doesn’t say so. He just pours a glass for himself, takes a long smoky sip, and watches the struggle play out on his boyfriend’s expressive face.

“But it’s so tempting,” Peter finally allows, weakly.

Chasten takes another sip. His voice mellows out until it’s as smooth as the whiskey. “I thought I was worth breaking the rules for.”

Peter glances down. Chasten wonders if he’s imagining the flush rising on his cheeks. “Because you are,” he finally says. “You’re everything.”

Chasten knows he’s hooked him. He starts to pour a second glass, but he’s still shaking, and he realizes he might spill this one. Peter realizes, too, and reaches out to stop him.

“Here,” Peter says, and their eyes lock, and the different frequencies of their different worries seem to clash in the air between them. “Let me help.”

“It shouldn’t be this way,” Chasten hears himself say as he lets go.

“I know,” Peter says back softly, “I know,” and for a moment the only sound is the liquid swirling into the glass.

Chasten watches Peter take a polite, hesitant sip before setting it back down. “No,” Chasten says.

Peter glances up. “No what?”

“Drink more.” He takes a long sip himself, to demonstrate.

Peter hesitates.

“Drink more,” Chasten repeats. He leans in. He smells aftershave and cologne, and strokes the impossible softness of his lapel. “When I kiss you tonight,” he whispers, “I want that taste on our lips. And after you’re gone, I want to drink it to remember you.”

Peter doesn’t answer, and he doesn’t even try breaking away from Chasten’s unblinking gaze. But finally, without looking down, he reaches for the glass and finishes it off in a too-fast motion. He licks his lips and swallows down a cough.

“Good,” Chasten says. He feels satisfied. His voice sinks down into a soothing murmur. “Thank you,” and he sets down his own glass and steps forward and kisses him. “I,” he says, kissing him, “love,” he says, kissing him, “ _you_ ,” he says, kissing him, and for a minute he’s so lost in the feeling of him, the feeling _for_ him, that he forgets he’s saying goodbye.

Chasten’s eyes have closed again. Something in him reclines into the familiar taste of the drink. He feels the low and golden October sunlight streaming through the window against his right cheek, and a warm palm on his left; he leans his face into the gentle pressure. “I love you, too, Chasten,” he hears. “I love you forever.”

With no response, no preamble, Chasten starts kissing him deep. He unbuttons Peter’s suit jacket, gives a hint of a smile at the surprised hitch of breath, pushes the fabric back over Peter’s shoulders, down his arms, past his elbows, until he gets it off entirely and it drops onto the sideboard. He suddenly has a need for Peter’s neck to be bare, so his fingers start working at his tie. He realizes he hasn’t stopped kissing him. Peter seems taken aback; all he does is hold onto Chasten’s arms, trying, it seems, to keep his bearings.

“Bedroom?” Peter manages.

“Anywhere,” Chasten breathes.

“Lead me.”

“Always.”

Chasten pulls his disheveled boyfriend to the hallway and pushes him up the creaking staircase. He wants Peter ahead of him; for a moment he doesn’t consciously understand why, but then once he sees, he realizes. His cock lets him know that just watching isn’t enough, and halfway up, he reaches out and presses his hand against Peter’s backside, feeling the muscles working in his palm as he climbs the steps. Chasten feels him pause and tense at the pressure. But there’s no objection.

By the time they reach the top, Peter is disoriented and out of breath, he doesn’t know where to go or how to get there. So Chasten takes his hand and pulls him into their bedroom. It’s the barest room of all now, with nothing in it but a dresser and a two-drawer nightstand and a bed with wrinkled sheets, halfheartedly made on one side.

They cross the threshold and Chasten keeps kissing him, not noticing particularly if he’s being kissed back. He slips off Peter’s tie with a silky motion; he unbuttons the top few buttons of his crisp white shirt so he can press his lips against the curve of his neck, biting the skin lightly, then harder. The scent and taste of the sweat there, and the vibration of Peter's low moans humming through them both, somehow make his arms go weak at the elbows.

Peter interrupts, voice hoarse against his ear. “I love this,” he whispers, “I promise I love this, but…” He takes a breath. “We only have one chance to say goodbye.” He says nothing for a moment, letting that sink in. “Is this how you want to say it?”

Chasten realizes he has been breathing in deep frantic gulps. They stand there together. He tries to level out, eyes sightless, face buried in Peter. When he finally speaks, as he does, his lips ghost across Peter's neck. He feels the wetness of his kisses there. “God,” he says, and as he says the word, he feels like he’s praying to someone, but he doesn’t know who. “I just fucking need you.”

“Ssh,” Peter says, and he reaches out to hold Chasten by his weakened elbows. “You have me.” He hesitates. The silence almost sounds guilty. “I’m here.”

Those words make Chasten moan. Hot sadness lurches up and out of him; the tears sting. “Come here, then,” he says, voice choked, “and - be here,” and he pulls Peter onto the bed.

There’s an urgency now. They veer between undressing themselves and undressing the other. One of their shirts ends up on the floor, alongside socks and shoes. Chasten shivers when he feels an affectionate hand trace down his bare chest. He hears the sound of a belt buckle.

Once they’re naked, they struggle for dominance for a minute, and Peter ends up collapsing on top of him. His weight is heavy, but the caresses he leaves along the veins of Chasten’s wrist are unbearably light.

Chasten stops. He knows something. “I need to…” he says. “Before we...” He trails off, trapped. He turns his head, looks away from Peter’s eyes, and blinks a few times. But before his tear can hit the pillowcase, Peter catches it with a gentle finger. “Peter,” he says, turning to look up at him. “Babe.” He reaches up and runs a hand through the thick dark hair. “I’ve said some terrible things, but I - ” It takes a moment before he can continue. “I never meant any of them.” An anxious breathlessness. “You _know_ that, don’t you?”

Peter's voice is soothing. “Of course.”

“All the horrible things I’ve said... I only said them because I’m scared. I’m just so scared of being alone. And when I get scared, it always comes out in the worst possible ways, and I...”

Peter's stroking his forehead now, and Chasten can’t stand his kindness. He’s weak, and he doesn’t fight it when Peter starts tangling their legs together, or when Peter says, “None of the things you say are horrible.”

Chasten takes a minute to put words together. “You say that now. But I know they hurt you. I said them _because_ I knew they’d hurt you. But I never meant a word. I never, ever meant a single word. Please believe me, Peter, please.”

“I know you didn’t.” At the placidity of Peter’s kindness, a new wave of loss feels like it’s washing over him, and for some reason he feels like he’s drowning in it. “Stop thinking,” Peter whispers to him, as if he can hear his thoughts. “Stop talking.” He must be able to feel hesitance beneath his lips. “Everything important you want to tell me…” He shifts a little and kisses him reverently in the center of his forehead. “I already know.”

Chasten tries to absorb the implications of this. He vacillates between being lost in thought and lost in feeling. Kisses are being trailed down the center of his stomach, kind hands following not far behind, stroking his sides.

Just as Peter’s mouth nears his hip bones, Chasten hears his own voice. “No,” he says. “Roll over,” he says. He feels his own voice flattening into a monotone.

Peter stops. “What?”

Chasten doesn’t look down from the ceiling. “Roll over.”

“Oh,” Peter says, and Chasten doesn’t know how to read the syllable.

Chasten struggles up. “I can’t look at your face while - I can’t - ” _I can’t keep that as a last memory_ , he thinks but can’t say. His chest constricts and he steels himself against the tears, but apparently he’s run out.

Peter hesitates for a moment, then obeys. His body is beautiful as it shifts around. Chasten manages to tear his eyes away long enough to lean over and open the top drawer of the bedside table. The shaking is worse now, but he’s not surprised; it feels as if every ounce of strength and blood in his body has poured down to throb between his legs. Inside the drawer, there’s nothing left but some lube, a handful of tissues, and a box of condoms. He’s suddenly uncertain about the condoms. He feels like he has to explain them. “I don’t want to - ” He has to search for the words. “I don’t want to have to do laundry from this after you’re gone,” he finally whispers. That whisper is unsteady. He’s unsteady. He knows he’s not making sense, and he can see Peter’s shoulders stiffen, but after a moment Peter just nods.

“It’s okay,” Peter murmurs, voice muffled by the pillow. “Whatever you need to do. You’re loved.” He hesitates. “You’re so loved, remember?”

The question makes Chasten’s fingers tremble as he trails them from the barely sweat-damp nape of Peter’s neck, to the muscled blades of his shoulders, to the dip of his waist. He lingers for a moment, drifting fingertips across his tight ass. It’s the first time tonight he feels Peter starting to really respond.

“Hands and knees,” Chasten says.

It takes a moment. But Peter takes the order.

Chasten shifts his weight and places his hands on the velvet skin of Peter’s waist. He thinks, involuntarily, about how this might be the last time anyone touches him there. How it might be the last time he ever touches him. “Peter,” he says, trying to forget. His voice is a warning. “You have to promise you’ll come back.”

“I’ll - always be with you,” he manages in return. In response, Chasten moves his fingers down and inside him, into his warmth. He’s less careful than he should be, and he immediately hates himself for it. But Peter says nothing in protest, only hums and _oh_ s. Chasten moves his fingers; Peter gives off a hiss and a low moan that Chasten wishes he could find satisfying. “I’ll always love you,” Peter says.

Chasten shakes his head. He takes a moment. Reaches for the condom. “No,” he says. He’s grim, and he’s shifting his weight again and slicking himself up. “You don’t need to keep saying that. That’s not what I’m asking for. Just promise to come back. That’s all.” He notices his hips are beginning to thrust reflexively. They’re pushing him into Peter. He doesn’t try to stop them. “You have to come back,” he says, and he starts talking in the same jerking rhythm of his motions. “Because there’s so much left for us. We’re going to get married - and we’re going to have a big wedding - and we’re going to raise babies - and you’re going to run for office, and we’re going to see the world, and we’re going to grow old together, and whenever we fight, we’re going to make up, and then we’re going to fall right - back - into - this - bed, and we’re going to fuck each other senseless until we forget everything bad that ever happened to us.”

Peter is whimpering. Chasten can’t tell if he’s uncomfortable. He doesn’t think so, but he doesn’t ask, and Peter doesn’t answer, and they don’t stop.

“Promise me, Peter,” he says. “Promise me we’ll do all that.” He hears his voice going higher. “I’m not going to make it if we can’t do that, Peter. I’m just not, and you know I’m not. You have to come back.”

Peter hangs his head just barely, and exhales a breath that shudders back through Chasten. “I promise to always love you,” Peter says, desperate. He sounds like a diplomatic record that’s skipping. “I love you.”

He’s right, but everything is wrong. Suddenly Chasten is disoriented, but he’s feeling far too cloudy to analyze why. “No,” he says. “It’s supposed to be me - loving _you_ \- it’s all wrong; I’m - ” and he then tries not to, but he can’t help it; somehow between the encouragement of the whimpers and the warmth and the worry, he comes.

He’s immediately shakier than ever; he briefly rests his forehead on the sweat of Peter’s back. They’re both panting for air now, but at different rhythms, and he lifts his head up and pulls back before he’s really ready, because the electric connection between them has sparked out. For the life of him he can’t remember what went so wrong.

He catches his breath. He staggers back on the mattress a bit, ties off the condom. A paper bag beside the bed is the room’s impromptu trash can, littered with rumpled tissues, the scattered detritus of his sadness. He leans over and drops the condom into it before collapsing on his back.

They lay there together, looking at the ceiling.

Chasten’s the first one to speak. “I did everything wrong,” he says. His voice is dull. “I want to…” He turns to his side and tries to look at Peter’s face. Peter’s eyes have closed, the dark lashes long against his flushed skin. “You’re the one who’s leaving,” he whispers. “I’m so fucking selfish. I’m always so fucking selfish. Let me…”

He trails off. Imperceptibly he moves to slide his hand down the smooth skin of Peter’s stomach, pausing at all the responsive spots they’ve taken such joy in discovering together. But Peter is so tense, so preoccupied, so disconnected, that no caress does anything to him. He’s frozen. In desperation, Chasten drifts his hand down between his thighs - and that’s the thing that finally sets Peter into motion. He suddenly jerks up his hand and grabs Chasten by the wrist and firmly keeps him from going any further.

“Babe,” Chasten whispers.

“Sorry,” Peter says. He closes his eyes. He doesn’t let go of Chasten’s wrist. “I’m…just a little overwhelmed, that’s all.”

Chasten is breathless. “Yeah,” he says. Then again: “Yeah.”

“There’s just so much on my mind; I...”

“Yeah,” he says again.

There is a long silence. All Chasten can hear is his own heartbeat tripping against his ribs, accompanied by the flush of shame high on his cheeks. He can hear the rustle of the pillowcase as Peter finally turns his head to look at him. Chasten doesn’t look back. “Later,” he hears Peter say. He lets Chasten’s wrist go, and he pats the back of his hand. “You can take care of me later. How’s that?”

Chasten’s breaths have devolved into distrustful huffs now, and there are agonized spaces in between them. “No,” he finally says. His voice is hoarse. “Don’t go.”

He wants more than anything else in the world for Peter to reach out, to tangle their fingers together like they always do when one of them is scared. But Peter doesn’t. To be kind, he has apparently decided to be cruel. “I have to go,” he says.

His bleeding heart suddenly feels as if it’s being disinfected against his will, dipped in a vat of hydrogen peroxide. He feels so stung, so stunned, that he curls into himself a little and rolls onto his side, and by sheer instinct he finds himself tucking his head beneath Peter’s chin. After a while, he feels careful fingers start to thread through his hair, and it is the most heavenly thing he’s ever felt.

When Chasten speaks again, he doesn’t recognize himself. “I think…” He says nothing for a moment. He tries again. “I think I’m done,” he says.

The fingers in his hair pause for a moment, then keep going. Peter is cautious. “So can I…?”

Chasten finishes for him. “Stop pretending?” He wishes he didn’t hear the bitterness in his voice, but he does. Finally he just nods, quickly, and buries his face deeper into warm clean skin. Peter must feel the silent tears dripping down his collarbone, because he leans over Chasten, pulls open the end table drawer, and silently offers him a Kleenex. Chasten clutches it gratefully in his hand. But he doesn’t use it.

“Tell me about him,” Peter says.

He waits.

Chasten doesn’t answer. He’s still hung up on the phrase _stop pretending._

But he keeps pressing. “What did you love most about him?”

Suddenly the words flow, flood out of him. With all the questions he’s been asked over the last couple of years, he doesn’t remember ever being asked this one. He’s never realized how badly he’s always wanted to answer it. “ _Everything_ ,” he says. “I loved _everything_ the most. He was smart. He was funny. He was handsome. But...he was so kind. That was what clinched it for me.” He pauses for a moment, checking with his soul to see if he’s telling the truth. He is. He’s decisive: “He was kind.”

“And how long…?”

Chasten takes a breath. “Well,” he says. He’s told the story so many times before. He lets his tongue go on auto-pilot to tell it. “We met online in mid-2015. Met in-person toward the end of August. I moved in a few months later, because I just… I knew.” He shrugs helplessly. “Then he had to leave in October 2016.” He notices he’s let his arm drift over the man’s chest, as if the bed is an ocean and his body is some kind of life preserver. He presses his fingers into his skin so he has the strength to say the next words. “And we found out on December 17. An IED. And - that’s how it ended. Nothing unusual. Just a routine tragedy.”

They’re both quiet for a long while. “So you had about a year,” the man beside him says.

“Yeah.”

Chasten doesn’t know whether he needs to sound defensive, but he doesn’t need to. The man is understanding. Kind. “A year isn’t very long.”

“No,” Chasten says. “It isn’t, is it?” He closes his eyes. “And so many good things happened in that year. That’s why I’m never going to forgive myself for that last night. Ever. It was my last chance to thank him - to thank him for everything he did for me - and instead I was so fucking scared that what ended up happening _would_ happen, that it all came out as anger, and I screamed at him, and I said things I should never, ever…”

When his heart tightens up too far to keep going, he feels an unexpected kiss at the crown of his head. “You said the right things tonight.”

Chasten’s voice is dull. “Even if I did,” he says, “he didn’t hear them.”

“You were in love. Maybe you never needed to say anything.”

This doesn’t feel right, but it’s a kind thing to say, so he doesn’t push back at it. Wearily he extracts himself from the embrace. He sits up and leans back against the headboard, pulling a sheet over his lap, suddenly modest and mortified.

The man looks up at him. “Did this help, do you think?” he asks.

It hasn't. “Maybe,” Chasten says. He looks down at his clasped hands. “I just - ” he says. “I miss him.” He can feel his voice disintegrating in his closed-up throat. “I miss him so fucking much.”

There’s a long silence. Finally the man sits up, too, following his lead and pulling the sheet over his lap, and they’re silent together.

“I told him I was broken,” Chasten offers suddenly. He knows he needs to stop talking, and that the man doesn’t care, not really. But he keeps going anyway. “A few times, toward the beginning. But I look back now and… I wasn’t even cracked then. Now I’m broken. _This_ is broken.”

The man nods. “Are you okay?” he asks. The question hangs in the air. It sounds ridiculous. He must realize this, because he asks another one. “Are you seeing someone?”

Chasten laughs to himself; he notices that his bitter laugh sounds identical to a sob. He opens up the bottom drawer of the nightstand and takes out a ring. “I did see someone. And I married him.”

He can feel the burn of the man’s stare on his face. He can’t decide if he cares.

“I wasn’t even thinking when I said yes,” he says. “Not really. I just wanted someone I could keep.” He slips the ring back on. “It was a mistake.”

The man shifts uncomfortably. “I’m sure it wasn’t a mistake. I’m sure he loves you dearly.”

“He will as long as he never finds out about this.” He sighs. He has gone the whole week without remembering that other life. But it’s flooding back now, and he feels like he’s drowning in it. “I told him I needed to come back here to talk to the realtor, which I did, because I need to get the house on the market and just be done with it, but…” He shakes his head, disbelieving. He thinks about things for a while. “The man I married is too good for me,” he says. “He deserves someone better. And someday he’ll get that.”

The man is careful and quiet and a little afraid. “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” he says. “It sounds like you’ve been struggling.”

For the first time since they broke the charade, Chasten looks at him. His eyes are blue, but there’s no magnetism, no power to them. He has thick dark hair, but it’s just a touch too short. His expression is somber, devoid of the awed twinkle he’d taken for granted in Peter’s. He is nothing but a pale imitation. Chasten wonders how he has possibly kept up this absurd charade for the past half hour. He wonders why he thought this would ever help. _Because it was the only thing left to try_ , he remembers.

“I think I should be hard on myself,” Chasten says. “I just cheated on my husband with a hooker because he looks like my dead boyfriend.” Hearing the words spoken aloud drains him of his bravado completely. It’s one thing to arrange a thing like this via email; it’s another thing entirely to verbalize it. He withdraws into himself. “I think everyone deserves a partner better than that.” A weak pause. “Don’t you?”

There’s no possible answer to that question besides “yes”, so the man takes a breath and nods and slips out from between the sheets. Chasten feels an ache watching him pad around the foot of the bed, bending down to collect his clothes. He watches him dress. He’s an attractive man. And he does bear more than a passing resemblance to Peter. But his body feels nothing for him.

“You’re a good listener,” Chasten says. He doesn’t know what else to say.

The man is buttoning up his shirt. “Thanks,” he says. He looks at Chasten, unnerved, but he’s hiding it well. When he gets to the last button, he pauses, waiting for something. For a moment, Chasten wonders if something real has happened, and his heart skips a beat for a reason he doesn’t understand.

But then he realizes. _Of course._ So he leans over and opens the second drawer again and reaches inside. The cash is paper-clipped together. As soon as the man accepts it, Chasten’s shaky hand drops down to the sheets. He looks away. He’s already beginning to feel the leaden guilt he knew he’ll be feeling for a long time. He wonders if the leaden guilt will be easier to carry than the burning guilt, or if he’ll have to carry both in tandem now.

While he’s wondering, the man touches his hand. He looks up. The man takes it, and holds it, and gently lifts the back of it to his lips. Chasten blinks five times in quick succession.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” the man says. “Really. What you had with Peter sounds incredible. He was a hero.” He glances at the floor, suddenly embarrassed. Chasten can tell he isn’t used to saying things he means. “I hope I did okay. And that it...helped you in some way. To let go.” He hesitates. “Broken things can be beautiful, you know.”

The idea is too poetic to be true, but Chasten fakes a gracious smile anyway. “Thank you,” he says. That’s how they say goodbye.

* * *

After his silent dinner, he lays awake in their bed. He swears he can hear the echo of their laughter emanating from the walls. Later, after the night gets darker, the memories of laughter dissolve into the memories of screams. He has lived their last night together over and over and _over_ again. The thing he’ll never understand is, he _knew_ that he was making the kind of mistake that could destroy his life. But he still hadn’t had the strength or self-control to do the right thing, to take back what he didn’t mean. And he’s sure Peter never completely forgave him for it. Who would?

He tries to catalog the potential ways out. Some escapes are grimmer than others.

He loses track of time in the dark. Once he takes his wedding ring off, he drifts off into a fitful doze.

Tomorrow will be his last morning in the house. At dawn, the movers will come to take the boxes to a storage unit somewhere in the featureless outskirts of Chicago. He can’t in good conscience abandon the things Peter left him. But after tonight, he’s more convinced than ever that he’ll never use them.


End file.
